News update – July 2017
Good To Be Working With You
Positive progress praised by Ofsted
I am delighted to announce that Ofsted inspectors have today praised our ‘positive progress’,recognition of everyone’s contribution toimproving the lives of children and young people living in the borough. This is on the back of positive feedback received from Ian Dodds, our DfE Improvement Advisor who visited us at the end of May -(Click herefor more information)
The Ofstedmonitoring visit took place last month and is the third visit since Dudley’s Children’s Services were rated inadequate by Ofsted in April 2016. During this visit, inspectors focused on how we work with children both coming into and leaving our care. It found improvements in social work practice were having a positive impact on children as they are now benefitting from our involvement. It also recognised that caseloads have reduced to a manageable level, which means social workers and Independent Reviewing Officers“spend more time with children”.
Ofsted have praised the enthusiasm and commitment of staff as well as Children’s Services’work to “create a positive learning culture” for staff and recognised once again the success of its back-to-basics training. We are hugely proud of your determination to help improve outcomes for children and families in Dudley.
Ofsted said that we are:
“Systematically and diligently addressing the actions in [our] improvement plan and this work is beginning to make a positive difference to children.”
Ofsted will be carrying out their fourth monitoring visit in October.
- read our news release
- read Ofsted’s monitoring letter
- read our improvement plan
- watch video of Tony Oakman and Cllr Anne Millward and their response to the letter
Well done and thank you to everyone for your support and commitmentto our children,
Sue Butcher, Chief Officer/Deputy Director Children’s Services
New appointments and goodbyes:
- Congratulations to Anne-Marie Delaney who has been appointed as our new Head of Service for Assessment and Care Management. Anne Marie took up her post on 3rd July. Many of you will know that Claire Nelson will be joining us as the permanent service manager for Assessment in mid July.
- Heather Flynn has recently taken up post as the permanent service manager for care management.
- Darren Shaw has now taken up postasthe Lead for Professional Practice and will be looking at how thenewly renamed Centre for Professional Practice will support and develop our practice. Although Darren is an interim appointment he will be with us for some time.
- MihaelaDamachin has also joined us as a project manager (service manager level) to add strategic capacity to developing the CWD service as it moves into the All Age Disability Service and also represent Children’s Services in developing the SEND agenda. Gurinder Rayat remains as team manager for the CWD team.
Chief Officer Briefings take place every Wednesday at Corbyn Road, starting at 9.15am for approximately 15 minutes. Please can everyone working elsewhere consider attending the briefings to get the most up to date information about Children’s Services.
Employee Warning System Procedure -all staff are reminded to be aware of the EWSaccess here
Care Leavers Charter and other useful information for care leavers can be accessedhere
Children’s Services featured on Community Care website, where our improvements are noted. Sue Butcher spoke to Luke Stevenson about how we are improving.You can read the article here
A Family Centre in Dudley is to be expanded to help more vulnerable youngsters and their families. The existing CoseleyFamily Centre, in Bayer Street, currently helps families with children, but a deal has been agreed to buy the former Family Health Clinic next door, which is currently empty, to facilitate the expansion. Read more about the expansion here
The Spring/Summer Adoption newsletter is now live. You can download a PDF of the newsletter here
The Dudley Carer newsletter has now had its June edition published. You can read the newsletter here
The policy briefing note regarding progression for qualified social workers has now been published. You can read the document here. If you have any further queries email
Benefits and discounts can be accessed by Dudley employees, and an employee benefits area has just been launched to tell staff more about the benefits they already receive and benefits they may not realise they can access. The new employee benefits area can be found here
And finally, a message from our new cabinet member for Children’s Services, Councillor Anne Millward:
“I am looking forward to working with and meeting many of those who work for Children’s Services, as well as building on local partnerships to continue to improve our service. Children’s Services has massively improved in recent times, and I am feeling very positive about being part of further improvements in months to come.”
Contacts
For questions about our improvement programme please email
If you would like to contribute or comment on this news update please